Category: English

The beginning of any copywriting career is, probably, the most challenging part of the path. You’re entering a whole new community with unfamiliar rules and requirements, which doesn’t seem any simpler even if you had some writing experience before. This article is made to simplify the task for newbies, who are tired of being called so.

My own sad, sad story

Copywriting and marketing stand much closer together than copywriting and storytelling. This means you’ll have to master writing skills basically from scratch, as well as to find your own, unique, answer on the question – “How to be a good copywriter?”

I’ve come through this point once, too, and I remember, how hard it was to learn everything from my own mistakes. The first six months of my career as a writer were entirely “experience-collecting.” I didn’t have any serious orders or regular customers, worked for peanuts, and tried to reveal, how top copywriters got their reputation.

Thinking about those times, I wish I knew some basic copywriting tips I had to learn later – but you can’t hold back the clocks. Thus, I decided to share my copywriting experience with you, reader, in case you face challenges I once did. Maybe, these tips will help you to overcome the “entry” stage faster than I did, so that you’ll be able to start working under some real projects without the trial period full of worries and low-cost labor.

Tip No.1. Cheer Up!

I bet you’ve already thought about leaving a copywriting area and trying to seek your fortune somewhere else – and that’s natural! This is the way our brain works: it tries to preserve as many mind & body energy as possible so that if the efforts don’t bring the desired result instantaneously, we feel a loss of strength and often give up trying at all.

There are two basic things you can do if you feel like you’re tired of being an unseen creator. First of all, you should answer a simple question – Do you really want to write?

If the answer is at least 50% positive, and you are sure that you want to connect your life with texts, then the only advice here is to keep trying. I know more than anyone else how disappointing is to leave dozens of bids and see a zero outcome, but the most obvious solution here is the most effective. The more you get acquainted with the clients’ requirements, the more you understand in which areas you have to evolve. Moreover, you see how the other copywriters draw clients’ attention, and you can always try those methods by yourself.

The statistics also approves this message. From a hundred bids, there must definitely be at least one client, who would like your candidature. The main trick here is to leave a message the employer will want to read (ten copypasted phrases “Available for work” have a very low probability of being chosen). Here is an article which will help you with the creation of a perfect bid.

You should be ready for a slack period, which might last from a week to half a year. Yet, if you’re not ready to wait without doing a hand’s turn, there are certain recommendations you can stick to, which might improve your chances of being noticed. Recommendations like..

Tip No.2. Complete Your Profile.

Your profile on any job searching website is your face – literally. By reading it, clients decide whether to choose you as a task performer, which is why this is the aspect you have to pay maximum attention to.

What should be in your profile?

Your well-quality photo in a formal setting, where you wear business clothes. The picture should capture your face close up – neither the beach behind you nor you among the company of your friends.

Captivating “About Myself” text. It should tell a possible client about your experience, motivation, the areas of your interest, what topics you wrote about, and what topics you know the best. Describe yourself as a professional, drastic and reliable copywriter – but be ready to answer clients’ expectations.

A portfolio is the key attribute of any profile because it demonstrates your experience and skills. If you only start your copywriting career, you can either honestly tell your customer about your absence of working practice or fill the profile with your own, non-marketing texts (they should show your knowledge in a range of areas like medicine, technologies, psychology, health, beauty, etc.)

Three lines, listing your school and university. One sentence which tells that you’re an expert and you want to work. Blank space.

Texts, which include grammatical mistakes, poor content texts.

The profile is your actual description, according to which the customers will picture you in their imagination. If you want to impress a client, be creative and spend some time searching for the best way of representing yourself. You’re a copywriter, all in all! Your main task is to create catching texts, so make one just for yourself, describing your advantages over the other workers.

Tip No.3. Don’t Focus On A Single Website.

By this stage, you must have already found a perfect job website for your researches. This might be Upwork (if you’re lucky enough to pass the registration), Freelancer or even Craigslist – everything depends on your personal preferences.

Every website has different numbers of registered users, and to be noticed you have to concentrate on the big “fishes.” The advice may seem obvious, but some time ago I wrongly underestimated its importance: more activity on different websites means more exciting projects you can take part in. Spare from one to three hours in a day to scroll around job offers and leave bids. Don’t spam with the identical messages – read the task, and then try to convince the employer that you’re the person he/she is searching for in a polite, professional way.

Tip No.4. Grammar and manners.

Not only your texts should be grammatically seamless – don’t forget about your conversation with the clients! Before sending any message read it twice. Be polite and keep the distance unless your client asks you the opposite.

In case you can’t boast of attentiveness, consider using such a service as Grammarly. It’s not only a great assistant when it comes to text editing – the service may as well check your correspondence on-the-go if you install the plugin on your browser. This is the service I use in my job – and you may as well.

Another “must-have” copywriting services I can recommend are the Thesaurus vocabulary, which I regulary use when there are too many identical (alike, equal, matching) terms in my texts and Context.Reverso – either for the contextual translation of phrases (which is an extremely useful feature if your native language isn’t English) or for the synonyms search (sometimes even better than Thesaurus offers). To check the originality of my texts I use Advego application, while WebFX tests their readability.

Here I listed my Newbie-Copywriter-Starter-Pack, which I wish I knew about 3 years ago. I’d be happy to hear about your must-have tools in the comments!

And finally…

Tip No.5. Work For Money – Not For Chump Change.

This question goes down to the problem of the copywriters’ self-esteem, which we’ll discuss later. I saw copywriters with 15 years of experience working for 1$ per 100 words, and I saw illiterate writers working for the price ten times higher than that.

The secret here is to find a happy medium between:

your experience

your understanding of the theme

the complexity of each task

…and turn it into money equivalent.

Of course, without any experience you won’t get 100$ for a single text – honestly, I still don’t receive such offerings – but working for free is not an option too. All in all, the prices for your job are your very own business, but I strongly advise you – respect your work and the efforts you put in it!

To Sum Up

The beginning of any copywriting career is, probably, the most challenging part of the path – it’s true, but not a complete one. Your career start is also one of the most enthralling and fascinating periods, during which you discover a brand new copywriting world and your role inside it. This is the time you can experiment with texts and formats, meet new interesting people and face challenging tasks – but the best part of all this campaign is your first serious salary, which you can get faster then I did faster than anybody else by following these five simple tips.

Add this article in your bookmarks and comment it if these pieces of advice came in handy for you!

Copywriting is an incredibly engrossing occupation: when new projects follow each other without any pause, you almost forget what season is outside the window. Yet, such devotion to your job isn’t wholesome neither for your writing talent nor your actual health. We tried to find out whether stress is such an inherent part of copywriters life as it is considered, and what shall you do when the computer screen starts to haunt you in the nightmares.

What Is Stress, Basically?

Thinking about copywriting, people often imagine lazy days by the sea with a cocktail in a left hand and a laptop in the right. In these fantasies, copywriter types a few sentences – and voila! – his working day is finished. But the reality (unluckily) is far away from this fairytale, and heaven knows how much we wish they’d match.

There is always that type of clients, who tests your stress resilience with more and more corrections. And there are days of non-stop work when the deadline is so close that you feel its breath behind your back. Not even mentioning the times when you take two (or more) simultaneous projects, either of which requires 100% of your attention. This charmless side of the medal is what makes copywriters wish they chose an office instead of freelance websites.

We’re all people, at long last – not the writing machines as some clients like to consider us. However, according to my observations, copywriters, regardless of their experience, sex, and age, often forget this simple verity by themselves, allowing their job occupy 20 hours of a day out of 24 available. Such working fever is unproductive and extremely dangerous – both for your mental and physical health. Here we collected three most vivid signs, which should hint you that it’s time to take a long break from work.

Top 3 Common Issues That Stress Causes

Unsteady mood and dejectedness

Depression, professional burnout, insomnia – these scary words often haunt work addicts, who experience stress more often than our bodies can handle. Other common symptoms may include low energy level or, vice versa, off-scale nervous agitation. And, of course, reaching a satisfying level of work productivity does not seem possible without proper rest.

This way, when sitting on the computer all day long, you do yourself a disservice through wasting precious time, which could be spent in more pleasant (and healthy) ways. We by no means advice copywriters to forget about their job – which is, however, quite a useful tip to use from time to time – but to alternate relaxation periods with work, and to remember to make small pauses for a cup of tasty coffee or tea.

Permanent muscle tension or pain

Stress has an accumulation property, which means it doesn’t disappear with its source. You should raise a red flag if you continuously feel muscle tension, especially when trying to sleep or purposefully relax.

Another side of this symptom is called chronic muscle pain. Because of the boundary muscle strain, you may experience all the palette of awful sensations – from a headache to cramps in legs. Studies have shown a direct correlation between the increase of cortisol (a stress hormone) and pain syndrome.

So, headaches after a sleepless night shouldn’t be a surprise for you. The absence of rest is the same old stress, which strikes the well-being of your whole body, and, especially, musculoskeletal system.

Decrease of your body immune defences

Forget about the strong immune system if you work 24/7 and be ready to meet your doctor on a daily basis because a common cold is the smallest trouble you have increased chances to face. According to the statistics, high levels of cortisol might provoke acne, digestion problems (including problems with the appetite), allergies, infections and all sorts of diagnoses to fit any taste.

If your old chronical illnesses remember about themselves, while new issues appear faster than you can cure them, then it’s definitely the time to plan your forthcoming holidays.

How To Prevent Or Deal With Stress Disorders

The most basic thing you must do is to isolate from the stressor – a factor, that causes the abundant negative emotions. The measures may include:

a complete break from copywriting on a period, which would be enough to restore your body’s energy

a stoppage of work with an excessively picky or annoyingly persistent client

to spend more time with your friends, family, or while doing your hobby

time-to-time coffee/tea pauses if the project is really urgent and your friends are busy hiding from your sad stories about deadlines and other copywriting stuff

Visit a doctor IMMEDIATELY if you notice some health problems, and DO NOT try to cure them by yourself! Stress is harmful, but in most cases, it plays only the secondary role in a disease spreading. The same is fair for psychological health, so do not hesitate to visit a specialist if the negative emotions are too powerful to deal with.

The recipe of the stress prevention is simple:

eat healthily

do sports

sleep thoroughly

and stay positive, because no matter what problems happen in your hard copywriter’s life – they’re all temporary!

Summing Up

Stress is OK. Yeah, it really does – if you feel it once a month, when you run out of your favorite cereals. In other cases – it’s a danger for your health, body, and mind, which impact is very hard to neutralize.

So, before taking the fifth project into work, ask future yourself a simple question – would the received money be worth all the damage your organism will take? We hope that, after reading this article, the answer to that question would be negative.

Modern trends are becoming more and more drawn around technologies and their role into regular people’s lives. Technological process is gaining steam with every single day, and this cannot but please us – advanced technologies promise humanity glittering future, where manual job would be replaced by mechanisms and programs. But if you think, that these are long-term prospects, which won’t find realization in the coming decade, then we are happy to dissuade you – such future is much closer than you think.

In favor of this statement we challenge you to remember at least one day, when you haven’t used your smartphone or TV at all. “Regular” devices and some familiar inventions (computers, laptops, cars, Internet etc.) have already become an inherent part of our lives, while such things as artificial intelligence, face recognition or deep learning still sound like some sort of science-fictional attributes for the major part of people. However, we are confident in that in the nearest years they will definitely become known for every single child and scholar all around the globe. The future is in the lap of high technologies.

It is hard to believe that almost 20 years ago personal computers or telephones were the attributes of rich people! Nowadays, we can’t imagine our life without robo-cleaners, autopilots, and other useful inventions, which help us to share the platform and shirk off manual work upon mechanisms, so that we can do more important job. There is no more clear illustration of the high tech availability and rapid reduction of prices than artificial intelligence.

Highly complicated system, based on millions of algorithms and deep learning mechanism, was designed to perform a vast of calculations at the same time, to make marketing researches, to create new medicaments and even to control transport by itself. However, the widest acceptance it has found in a sphere of artificial perception, and especially in areas where face recognition was required (police departments, face searching in a crowd etc.) Soon, people have realized, that such well-developed technology can be useful even in our regular lives, and from that point handymen all around the world were trying to make regular people’s livings better and easier. That’s the exact story of how Brian AI grew from a theoretical idea up to the high-grade application assistant.

The general idea of such application appeared 10 years ago, when there was no help for people, who wanted to trade their photos on special sites. Dull work of photo customization and editing by hand was ineffective and very loiter. In an hour you could have handled about 10 photos maximum, so the problem was framed – we needed an application, which could have done quick analysis and process of a big amount of images. Using all the last achievements in programming, the first prototype of AI-based assistant was developed.

Brian AI is an app for photographers, photo sellers and simply for active people, who like to catch a moment in snap. Fed upon advanced technology of artificial perception, it can analyze, sort and systematize huge amount of images in minutes. Now, instead of durable clicking/typing/scrolling, you can simply download Brian AI, upload bunch of images and get the results right away. There’s no big deal if your massif of photos is stored into numerous data storage devices – you only need one computer with Brian AI on it. Plug all of your HDDs into PC and watch as our app cleans up in your photo mess.

Dozens of functions allow using Brian AI both by professionals and amateurs. This app is incredibly useful if you sell photos or have a need to systematize them. Using Google Vision and GoogLeNet Inseption base, application generates dozens of conforming tags for every single image, and then automatically collects them into albums. There’s no more helpful program than Brian AI for people, who suffer from lack of space on HDD: its sophisticated search technology can help user to find duplicate photos, photos with low quality or bad exposition, and then delete them to leave only the best shots. If you’re going to place your photos on public resources, but afraid of steals, then a good decision would be to add watermarks on a pile of them, and even there Brian AI can lend you a hand – using one of the tools, you can do that in a moment.

By far, our application is the most convenient ally for every single PC user. Hundreds of functions, constant support and regular updates guarantee that Brian AI will always be in step with times. Forget about manual job – stop wasting your precious time with a help of our succoring Brian AI app!

Dogs are undoubtedly one of the friendliest animals in the world towards their owners. Empathetic and companionable, they’re almost like us in their regular lives. Dogs have hobbies and food preferences, they adore active lifestyle, games, and a good sleep. But most importantly — they make us happy and teach us how to enjoy every day of our lives by their own example.

Dogs are a boon to photographers, who love shooting wild animals and nature, yet, these pets are very prone to get into funny situations too. There are hundreds of viral videos and photos, which were taken by vigilant owners and uploaded on the Internet, where different dog breeds make everyone around laugh because of their inborn cheerfulness (and clumsiness). There’s even more of amusing materials stored on flash drivers or external HDDs all around the world. After a few months of ownership, it’s OK to find your whole phone or camera gallery conquered by the images of your pet in all kinds of positions, situations and moods.

Plenty of similar photos in the camera memory is a very common problem for people who like to imprint the most significant moments of their friendship with pets. Moreover, it’s a big trouble when among dog photos you can’t find some important images. Such significant, yet, memo polluting shots accumulate on your SD card until there’s no empty space for new pictures. Fortunately, modern technologies can help you even in such complicated situation.

To sort out the best photos and get rid of duplicates you’ll need to spend hours and hours of monotone manual scrolling. Are you ready to lose a whole day for such questionable enjoyment? If the answer is “no”, then Brian AI will be the best choice of assistant for you. Using all the latest achievements in artificial intelligence researches, we created an app which can do all photo systematization job without any user’s help.

Based on sophisticated algorithms, Brian AI organizes all available images according to their content. Its potential is almost unlimited — app easily finds your nursling midst any landscape and among other dogs. Application attaches key tags, generated by Google Vision and GoogLeNet Inception services, to the photo, which means you can quickly find some specific image amid thousands of them. Application analyzes dog’s breed, coloration, clothes and surroundings, identifies dog’s snout features and unique marks. Brian AI can manage all your dog photos in seconds despite their big quantity or poor quality.

Apart from filtration and management, our app can systematize images according to their tags into albums. It can analyze focus, blur, angle of the photo, automatically choose the best one from the series of similar shots, and then delete the others with one click of yours. The search amidst photos was never so simple as with Brian AI — you can put in required tag and get results immediately, or use the right-sided menu with all the tags collected in one place. About even more functions of this app you can learn by this link.

A unique feature of our application is, of course, its ability to educate. Artificial intelligence can boost its productivity and accuracy using your photo archive thanks to built-in mechanisms based on deep learning technology. The more you use it, the more exact results you get. By repetitive analysis of your pet’s photos, Brian AI can train to recognize its 10 year old appearance, which would be very convenient if you haven’t put in order your SD’s memory in a while.

If you need to sort your pictures into albums with a need for further exploitation, then, again, Brian AI, which you can find on http://www.brianai.com,is a must-have. Sell a whole bunch of same-thematic photos, make a presentation-like movie demonstrating pictures according to their photographing date from the oldest ones up to the newest, upload images from social networks — do whatever you need with your brand-new systematized archive. Brian AI is suitable for every desktop, computer or mobile phone, so there’s no need to transfer pictures from different devices. Only for $10 you’ll get a whole arsenal of AI instruments and a constant support from our consultants, which is nothing compared with a convenience of Brian AI application.

Modern technologies have made our lives much easier and comfortable by taking away a need of hand-operated functions, but today their sphere of influence is growing day by day. Artificial intelligence-based applications like Brian AI are the examples of how high tech can be used in our everyday lives. Download it and use its full potential to make your life much more systematized!

If you have not spent the last couple of years in a hermitage, you’ve probably heard about bitcoins and blockchain. Now, even schoolchildren are actively engaged in mining. Let’s try to figure out what is really blockchain and why everyone is going crazy.

The heart of the matter

Blockchain technology is primarily designed for secure storage of data. Here you can store any important information, from credit obligations to new currencies. The reliability of the entire structure is due to the fact that the register of data is not concentrated somewhere in one place but is distributed among thousands of users around the world. Thus, the very possibility of a hacker attack and some kind of clandestine manipulation of information is excluded.

Cryptography

Actually, the blockchain is just a chain of cryptographically connected blocks. A new block is added to the end of the whole chain, all blocks together are connected by mathematical algorithms. This technology can be used not only to record financial transactions, but for everything that has value.

Hashing

The hash function is a special algorithm that takes input data (any, from image to binary code) and creates from it a code sequence of a specific length. Same files will produce the same hash on the output.

Database

The easiest way is to imagine the blockchain as a kind of database, duplicated tens of thousands of times throughout the network. The database is updated constantly, which ensures transparency and verification of information.

Safer than bank

That sounds ambitious, but according to many experts, the blockchain really became the guarantor of information accounting. The use of this technology excludes the influence of the human factor on the outcome of the transaction: without the agreement of the parties involved, even changes to the general register of data will not be made.

Protection against intrusion

Copies of the database are kept on all participating computers. Decentralised system makes hacker attack impossible. In addition, the hashing process is irreversible, which allows reliable security of personal data: an attempt to change a transaction or an original document will result in a new hash, different from the existing one in the system.

Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency. Its emission is not controlled by any state, transactions are transparent and anonymous. The system is securely protected, it is simple and at the same time extremely complex. In a couple of years, the cryptocurrency and mining are spreading all over the world.

Who Invented Bitcoin?

The history of the Bitcoin creation is ambiguous, intriguing and mysterious. The author of the cryptocurrency is the ephemeral Satoshi Nakamoto – an Internet user (or a group of users) who published an article on cryptocurrency in the mailing list at the end of 2008. They described the digital peer-to-peer currency. At the beginning of the next year Nakamoto released the first software for working with cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin Basis

Hash function. A mathematical transformation by an algorithm that turns any set of information into a unique number-letter value of a certain fixed length – a hash. Something like a cipher. Even a small change of one character in the original data set, causes the output (hash) to change drastically.

The key element of the bitcoin system is a blockchain. It is a chain of blocks where information on transactions in the network is stored for the entire time of its existence. A copy of this unique database is kept by every member of the system, gradually and constantly updated due to the receipt of new blocks.

Why is It Safe?

What happens if someone decides to change the transactions in the block and cancel the money transfer or change the addressee? He can do it, but then the hash of the block will change. A new branch will appear in the chain.

To fix its fraudulent block, a hacker will have to solve a new task in 10 minutes faster than others. And one can not solve it beforehand by building blocks, because the solution depends on the hash of the previous block. Thus, an attacker will have to own at least half the power of a Bitcoin network, in order to solve a new task with 50% probability and build new blocks. All in all, this is practically unreal and completely unprofitable.

How are Bitcoins Mined?

Performance diagrams of the network clearly demonstrate that video cards are not of the utmost importance in the field of mining. CPU left this niche in 2011, GPU – in 2013. Now the Bitcoins are mined on the application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), which are exclusively for the hash calculation. Nevertheless, lots of other cryptocurrencies are still being mined on video cards.